Held annually in Las Vegas, Nevada in January, the CEA's Consumer Electronics Show is one of the largest industry trade shows. Last year saw 150,000+ attendees.

Traditionally, Microsoft was a big supporter of CES delivering flashy keynotes. But in Dec. 2011, Microsoft made a surprise announcement that it was dropping support for the show, writing:

We'll continue to participate in CES as a great place to connect with partners and customers across the PC, phone and entertainment industries, but we won’t have a keynote or booth after this year because our product news milestones generally don’t align with the show’s January timing.

Thus it appeared that the 2012 CES would be Microsoft's last year to have a major presence at the event.

Microsoft was at CES 2013, but hasn't given a keynote at the show since 2012.
[Image Source: ComPixels]

Indeed after a modest presence at CES 2012, Microsoft had a minimal presence at this year's show. Microsoft's absence may have been dangerous for the company, for it was at the show that we saw Windows 8 criticisms hit a fever pitch, with one top OEM revealing to us that approximately 75 percent of their customers were rejecting the new operating system (after either immediately downgrading to Windows 7 or briefly trying Windows 8, then opting to downgrade instead). It seemed almost as if Microsoft had rejected CES and many at CES had rejected Microsoft.

Earlier this year, CEA president Gary Shapiro had revealed in an interview with The Verge that Microsoft's decision to abandon the show might not have been as one-sided as it seems. He recalls:

We didn't end the relationship, we have a great relationship with Microsoft. The reason they didn't do the keynote is that we made a decision that we could not have the same keynoter every year. The thing was unique to Bill Gates. Gates to me is like Steve Jobs, a legendary guy, and we could not have him so we had to end it.

In other words, having a yearly Bill Gates keynote was okay by Mr. Shapiro's reckoning, having his successor Steve Ballmer every year would not be. Mr. Shapiro didn't appreciate the way Microsoft broke its pullout, commenting, "How they chose to release that to the public would not have been our first choice."

But here we are with the 2014 CES not that far off and with Mr. Ballmer soon to be in the rear view, Microsoft appears to be returning to the fold -- or at least is offering up enough of a commitment to create confusion.

Gary Shapiro this week ignited controversy when he announced Microsoft was "back" at CES. Microsoft contends it never left. [Image Source: Jason Mick/DailyTech]

I pretty much think that your defending a company that is famous for not listening to the paying public, Sony on the other hand knows where it's bottom dollar is, who would not want to own a Sony product, many of there products are high end and attract a higher price for that reliability and style with good features. Between them and apple they make Microsoft look nasty with there products.

Well, if you think Sony nor Apple made any mistakes, even recently, you are sorely misinformed.

PS3 was overpriced, late and DRM infected, poor online and nooo additional software features. They also lost a huge portion of TV and portable audio market. They continued their development and made their product better over time.

Apple has had numerous software and hardware bugs throughout their products: failed maps, antenna issues while blaming the consumer they were holding it wrong etc.

To be honest, troll comments weaken Sony and Apples image when defended by naive fans. They deserve better.